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Reconstruction policies were implemented when a Confederate state came under the control of the Union army, they addressed how the eleven seceding states would regain self-government and be re-seated in Congress, the civil status of the former leaders of the Confederacy, and the Constitutional and legal status of freedmen, especially their civil rights and whether they should be given the right to vote. Violent controversy erupted throughout the South over these issues.

President Lincoln set up reconstructed governments in Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana during the war.

He experimented with giving land to ex-slaves in S Carolina. Following Lincoln's assassination in April 1876, president Andrew Johnson tried to follow Lincoln's policies and appointed new governors in the summer of 1865. Johnson quickly declared that the war goals of national unity and the ending of slavery have been achieved so that reconstruction was complete, but Republicans in Congress refused to accept Johnson's terms, rejected the new members of congress elected by the South, and in 1865-66 broke with the president.

A Republican victory in 1866 Congressional elections in the North gave the Radical republicans enough control that they over rode Johnson's vetoes and began the "Radical Reconstruction" in 1867. congress removed civilian governments in the south and put the former Confederacy under the rule of the US Army. The army conducted new elections wherein freed slaves could vote, while whites were temporarily denied the vote and could not run for office.

Passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are constitutional legacies of Reconstruction. These Reconstruction Amendments established the rights which led to Supreme Court rulings starting in the early 20th Century that struck down discriminatory state laws